While in Israel, Italy’s president of the Council of Ministers, Silvio Berlusconi, proved once again that Italy is one of Israel’s most committed allies by suggesting that he would like to see Israel invited to join the European Union, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.

“At first glance the proposal did not seem to have been made seriously, except that the EU is considering extending membership to Turkey, so why not extend membership to Israel?” Corsi wrote.

If the proposal were to advance within the EU, Islamic states would almost certainly respond by launching anti-Italy demonstrations and boycotting Italian-made goods, Red Alert reported.

“With the requirement that EU countries not occupy territory that is not recognized as part of its own, Berlusconi could respond that a condition of Israel joining the EU would be for Israel to completely turn over the West Bank as well as the Gaza to the administration of the Palestinian Authority,” Corsi noted. “Moreover, with the EU nations of Greece, Spain and Portugal about to experience economic collapse over continued high levels of unemployment and unsustainable levels of public debt, the EU could use among its members right now a strong economy such as Israel’s.”

In his visit to Yad Vashim, Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum, Berlusconi left an emotional hand-written message saying: “Our soul cries out that ‘it is not true, it cannot be true,’ and then, facing reality, shouts ‘never, never again.”

The Italian newspapers also pointed out that Israel is considering the purchase of 40 of Italy’s most advanced M-346 fighter jets at a cost of over 1 billion pounds ($1.365 billion).

Berlusconi is also pursuing the sale of 48 M-346 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates at a cost of 1.4 billion pounds (or $1.9 billion), but so far Italy has refrained from proposing that the UAE should be allowed to join the EU.

During his visit to Israel, Berlusconi also delivered an obvious message to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, saying, “We will not close our eyes before a state that wishes to destroy a country that is our friend.”

Still, Italy remains Iran’s second trading partner, behind Germany.

In 2008, Italy was responsible for approximately 6.1 billion pounds (or $8.4 billion) in trade with Iran, approximately 25 percent of the total trade conducted between the EU and Tehran.

Red Alert noted, Berlusconi won no friends among the Palestinians after his speech to the Knesset in which he claimed Israel was justified in launching rocket attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza during December 2008 that killed 1,400 Palestinians.

Berlusconi recalled Italy’s vote against the United Nations report on Israel’s December 2008 Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza, in which Israel rejected the report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council by an independent fact-finding committee headed by the South African prosecutor Richard Gladstone.

The so-called “Goldstone Report” sought to criminalize Israel for responding with military force to the Hamas-launched rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza.

Red Alert’s author, whose books “The Obama Nation” and “Unfit for Command” have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

For financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, “The Obama Nation.”